Korean businesses seek to boost presence in Vietnam

Korean businesses are exploring new investment opportunities in Vietnam, seeing huge potential in the rapidly growing Southeast Asian country which last year emerged as Korea's third-largest trade partner following China and the U.S., said Koreatimes.

The pivot is aimed at reducing Korea's economic reliance on China, where Korean businesses face uncertainties due to the rivalry between China and the U.S. over supply chains and other issues.

The increasing interest in Vietnam has been reflected in visits to the country by more than 200 Korean business leaders, including the chiefs of Korea's top four conglomerates, who are accompanying President Yoon Suk Yeol's state visit to the Southeast Asian country as an economic delegation.

Industry officials expect the heads of the conglomerates ? Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun, and LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo ? to inspect facilities there and announce new investment opportunities.

For Lee Jae-yong, Vietnam has become a regular business destination due to Samsung Electronics producing nearly half of its Galaxy smartphones in factories there. Korea's significance there is further emphasized as the Galaxy smartphone contributes to about one-fifth of Vietnam's total exports.

We remind, SK Group has also been investing heavily in Vietnam, recognizing its growth potential. It established SK Southeast Asia Investment Corp. in 2018 and has invested in promising local companies, including the purchase of a 9.5 percent stake for USD470 million in Masan Group, Vietnam's leading food and beverage and distribution company and also investing USD1 billion in Vingroup.

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Aramco and TotalEnergies today awarded Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts for the USD11 billion "Amiral" complex, a future world scale petrochemicals facility expansion at the SATORP refinery in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

A signing ceremony took place in Dhahran attended by Amin H. Nasser, Aramco President and CEO, and Patrick Pouyanne, TotalEnergies Chairman and CEO. The award of EPC contracts for main process units and associated utilities marks the start of construction work on this joint project, following the final investment decision in December 2022. Integrated with the SATORP existing refinery in Jubail, the new petrochemical complex will house the largest mixed-load steam cracker in the Gulf, with a capacity to produce 1.65 million tons of ethylene and other industrial gases per year.

This expansion is expected to attract more than USD4 B in additional investment in a variety of industrial sectors (carbon fibers, lubes, drilling fluids, detergents, food additives, automotive parts and tires) and create around 7,000 direct and indirect jobs in the country.

Amin H. Nasser, Aramco President & CEO, said: “Today we are taking a major step forward in further strengthening the partnership between TotalEnergies and Aramco, with the SATORP expansion project being the latest in a longstanding history of collaboration of almost five decades between both companies. As part of Aramco’s growth strategy, the project is anticipated to contribute to value-addition opportunities in the Kingdom’s downstream ecosystem, and we thank the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Investment for their tremendous support via the Shareek program to make this multi-billion-dollar project a reality."

Patrick Pouyanne, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of TotalEnergies said: “This landmark opens a new page in our shared history with Aramco, which we are delighted to be associated with once again. This expansion project reinforces the exemplary relationship that our two companies have enjoyed for several decades in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We would like to thank the Ministry of Energy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its support throughout the development of this world-class project.”

We remind, TotalEnergies confirms its commitment to the energy transition in Kazakhstan with the signature of a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for the Mirny project. This will be the first PPA signed in the country for a wind project of such scale. Located in the Zhambyl region, the project aims to build a 1 GW onshore wind farm combined with a 600 MWh battery energy storage system for a reliable power supply.

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Total Energies and VNG, a German natural gas distribution company, have signed an agreement to initiate the future supply of green hydrogen to the Leuna refinery operated by Total Energies, said Process-worldwide.

Under the agreement, green hydrogen will be produced from renewable electricity with a 30 MW electrolyzer in Bad Lauchstadt, built and operated by VNG with its partner Uniper. This agreement contributes to the decarbonization of the Leuna refinery and will reduce the site's annual CO2 emissions by up to 80,000 tons by 2030.

Furthermore, the pipeline connection to the Bad Lauchstadt Energy Park will give the Leuna refinery access to the future European hydrogen infrastructure and the international markets for green hydrogen.

"This project is fully in line with Total Energies' ambition to decarbonize all hydrogen used in its European refineries by 2030. Our ambition is to replace the gray hydrogen with low carbon hydrogen, representing a reduction of 3 million tons of CO2 per year by 2030,"said Jean-Marc Durand, Senior Vice President, Total Energies Refining Base Chemicals Europe.

We remind, TotalEnergies confirms its commitment to the energy transition in Kazakhstan with the signature of a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for the Mirny project. This will be the first PPA signed in the country for a wind project of such scale. Located in the Zhambyl region, the project aims to build a 1 GW onshore wind farm combined with a 600 MWh battery energy storage system for a reliable power supply.

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SK Geo Centric has introduced Korea’s first platform utilizing ‘blockchain technology’ for recording and tracking the history of recycled plastic materials, said Process-worldwide.

By leveraging the tamper-proof nature of blockchain, it aims to ensure that customers can be rest assured when using recycled plastic materials and expand the materials’ range of use.

The recently launched history-management platform for recycled plastic materials by SK Geo Centric records and manages all processes, from the collection of waste plastics to their recycling and transformation into new products, using blockchain technology. Blockchain is a distributed data storage technology where the ‘blocks’ containing data are replicated and stored on multiple computers, and linked like a ‘chain’ to compare and verify each other’s authenticity. It is impossible to forge or alter the data without permission. Therefore, it is being used to increase trust in fields such as cryptocurrencies and financial certifications.

Recycling of waste plastic is gaining the limelight as an alternative solution to environmental pollution, but there are also some doubts about the source and safety of collected waste plastics. In addition, manufacturing companies want to confirm whether the components of parts using recycled materials are suitable for production. Such needs require more advanced information than what the existing ‘ISCC Plus certification’ provides. SK Geo Centric has identified these concerns from client companies and consumers while promoting its plastic recycling business. As a result, it introduced the history-management platform to address these concerns.

The history-management platform records all processes, from securing waste plastics to recycling them into materials, and finally producing the complete product. Intermediate producers and consumers can scan the QR code attached to the product with their smartphones to check the entire recycling history of plastics used for the product. The recycled plastic history information includes the types and sources of the waste plastics used as raw materials, as well as the proportions of each material used to make a new product. Similarly, detailed information needed by intermediate producers, such as the quality grade of a material, is also included. Therefore, the history-management platform can ease the difficulty of getting through the certification process regarding the suitability of recycled materials and reduce the cost required for the process.

We remind, SK Geo Centric Co announced that it will create a joint venture with Loop Industries of Canada to build a cluster for plastic recycling. The company will hold 51% of the JV and will create recycling facilities in Ulsan, South Korea by 2025. The plant will make 70,000 tonnes/y of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin for packaging and polyester fibre applications using Loop's depolymerisation technologies. The team intends to build three additional manufacturing facilities in Asia by 2030. SK Geo Centric is a petrochemical unit of SK Group.

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Kraton Corp. (Houston) announced the expansion of its manufacturing capabilities in Berre, France, to produce up to 100% ISCC PLUS certified renewable Styrenic Block Copolymers (SBC) as part of the CirKular+ ReNew Series via mass balance approach, said Chemengonline.

CirKular+ ReNew Series enables up to 85% cradle-to-gate carbon footprint reduction* (including biogenic carbon) compared to fossil-based products manufactured at Berre. This significant advancement reinforces Kraton’s commitment to the circular economy and offers customers sustainable, innovative solutions.

International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) is an independent multi-stakeholder initiative and leading certification system. ISCC employs a mass balance approach that tracks the amount of recycled or bio-based raw material in a value chain and attributes the amount based on verifiable bookkeeping to a given end product. This approach allows companies and consumers to evaluate the sustainability requirements of materials and products quantitatively.

The CirKular+ ReNew Series are ISCC PLUS Certified renewable polymers, further expanding Kraton’s existing suite of solutions designed to advance the circular economy. In 2022, Kraton successfully produced CirKular+ ReNew Series SBCs at the Berre plant using certified renewable butadiene to enable up to 70% ISCC PLUS certified content. With the recently expanded capability, the ReNew Series can offer up to 100% certified renewable content, including certified renewable styrene, and continues to enable customers to use the mass balance approach to produce renewable products.

We remind, Kraton plans a “significant expansion” of styrene-butadiene-styrene block copolymers (SBS) capacity at its plant in Belpre, Ohio, starting in 2024. By 2025, SBS production capacity is expected to increase by 24,000/year.

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